FOUNDATION OF SPECIAL AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATION NOTES
FOUNDATION OF SPECIAL AND INCLUSIVE
EDUCATION NOTES
What is Special Education?
Special Education (also known as special-needs
education, aided education, exceptional education, special ed or
SPED) is a broad term that describes a wide variety of
instructional services that are based on a child’s individual
needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned
and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching
procedures, adapted equipment and materials, and accessible
settings.
These interventions are designed to help individuals
with special needs achieve a higher level of personal self-
sufficiency and success in school and in their community which
may not be available if the student were only given access to a
typical classroom education.
Objective of Special Education
 To develop the maximum potential of the child with
special needs to enable him to become self-reliant and
shall be geared towards providing him with the
opportunities for a full and happy life.
Specific Objective of Special Education
 The development and maximation of learning
competencies, as well as the inculcation of values to
make the learners with special needs as useful and
effective members of society.
The Ultimate Goal of Special Education
The integration or mainstreaming of learners with
special needs into the regular school system and eventually into
the community.
Basic Philosophy of Special Education
 “Every child with special needs has a right to a
educational program that is suitable to his needs.”
 “Special education shares with regular education basic
responsibilities of the educational system to fulfill the
right of the child to develop to his full potential.”
Prominent Personalities in the Development of Special
Education
 Jean Marc Gaspard Itard - French physician noted
for his work with the deaf. From about 1800 he
devoted a great deal of his time and private fortune to
the education of deaf persons.
 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet- educational
philanthropist and founder of the first American
school for the deaf. Established the American Asylum
for deaf-mutes.
 Samuel Gridley Howe -American physician,
educator, and abolitionist as well as the founding
director of the New-England Institution for the
Education of the Blind (later known as the Perkins
School for the Blind) and the Massachusetts School for
Idiotic and Feeble- Minded Youth.
◦ known particularly for his success in teaching the
alphabet to Laura Bridgman, a student who was
blind and deaf.
 Dorothea Dix- American educator, social reformer,
and humanitarian whose devotion to the welfare of the
mentally ill led to widespread reforms in the United
States and abroad.
 G Stanley Hall- psychologist who gave early impetus
and direction to the development of psychology in the
United States. Frequently regarded as the founder of
child psychology and educational psychology.
 Anne Sullivan Macy- American teacher of Helen
Keller, widely recognized for her achievement in
educating to a high level a person without sight,
hearing, or normal speech.
What is Exceptionality?
An individual or a child who has an exceptionality has
some area of functioning in which he or she is significantly
different from an established norm. This definition includes
both students with disabilities and those with special gifts or
talents.
• Learning disabilities
• Developmental delays
• Emotional and behavioral disorders
• Communication disorders
• Hearing disabilities
• Visual disabilities
• Physical disabilities
13 Legal Categories of Exceptionalities
1. AUTISM
Always Unique Totally Interesting Sometimes
Mysterious
• A developmental disability significantly affecting
verbal and non-verbal communication and social
interaction.
3 Primary Features:
a. Restricted range of social interaction.
b. Impaired communication skills
c. Persistent pattern of stereotypical behaviors,
interests, and activities.
2. DEAF-BLINDNESS
• A hearing and a visual impairment.
3. DEAFNESS
• A hearing impairment that is so severe that the
child is impaired in processing linguistic
information through hearing; with or without
amplification that adversely affects a child’s
educational performance.
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 FOUNDATION OF SPECIAL AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATION NOTES
4. EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCES
• A condition exhibiting one or more of the
following characteristics over a long period of
time and to marked the degree that adversely
affects a child’s educational performance.
 Inability to learn that cannot be
explained.
 Inability to build or maintain satisfactory
interpersonal relationships with peers.
 Inappropriate types of behavior.
 A general pervasive mood of
unhappiness.
 A tendency to develop physical
symptoms or fears with personal or
school problems.
*schizophrenia
5. HEARING IMPAIRMENT
 An impairment in hearing, whether permanent or
fluctuating, that adversely affects a child’s
educational performance but that is not included
under the definition of deafness.
6. INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY
 A significantly sub-average general intellectual
functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in
adaptive behavior and manifested during the
developmental period that adversely affects a
child’s educational performance.
7. MULTIPLE DISABILITIES
 A concomitant impairment (such as mental
retardation- blindness, mental retardation- or
orthopedic impairment, etc.) the combination of
which causes such severe educational needs that
they cannot be accommodated in special
education solely for one of the impairments.
8. ORTHOPEDIC IMPAIRMENT
 defined as a bone-, joint-, or muscle-related
disability that is so severe that it negatively affects
a child’s educational performance.
Includes:
- Congenital anomalies
Example: Clubfoot
Caused by disease
Example: Poliomyelitis
9. OTHER HEALTH IMPAIRMENTS
 Having limited strength, vitality or alertness,
including a heightened alertness to environmental
stimuli that results in limited alertness with
respect to the educational environment that-
a. Is due to chronic or acute health problems
such as asthma, ADD (Attention deficit
disorder), ADHD
b. (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder),
diabetes, epilepsy, heart condition,
hemophilia, lead poisoning, leukemia,
nephritis, rheumatic fever and sickle-cell
anemia.
c. and adversely affects a child’s educational
performance.
10. SPECIFIC LEARNING DISABILITY
 A disorder in one or more of the basic
psychological processes involved in
understanding or in using language, spoken or
written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect
ability to listen, think, speak, write, spell, or to do
mathematical calculations.
Including conditions such as:
o Perceptual disabilities
o Brain injury
o Minimal brain dysfunction
o Dyslexia
o Developmental aphasia
 Disorders not included: the learning problems that
are primarily the result of visual, hearing or motor
disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional
disturbance, or of environmental, cultural or
economic disadvantage.
11. SPEECH O LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT
 A communication disorder such as stuttering,
impaired articulation, language impairment or a
voice impairment that adversely affects a child’s
educational performance.
12. TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY
 An acquired injury to the brain that caused by an
external force, resulting in total or partial
functional disability or psychosocial impairment
or both adversely affects a child’s educational
performance.
 applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in
impairments in one or more areas, such as
cognition; language; memory; attention;
reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem-
solving; sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities;
psychosocial behavior; physical functions;
information processing; and speech.
 does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital
or degenerative, or to brain injuries induced by
birth trauma.
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 FOUNDATION OF SPECIAL AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATION NOTES
13. VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
 An impairment in vision that even with correction
adversely affects a child’s educational
performance.
 Includes both partial sight and blindness.
Special Education vs. Regular Education
1. Admission
 Regular: Entrance Examination
 SPED: Identification and Assessment
2. Curriculum (Mandated by DepEd)
 Regular: The curriculum prescribed for regular
children
 SPED: The curriculum for children with special
needs aimed primarily at developing special
adoptive skills to maximize their potentials.
3. Instructional materials methods and strategies
 Regular: Dimensional following the curriculum,
set of objectives for learning.
 SPED: Constructivism (Learning by experience)
 Applies to both: use of materials that are low cost
and indigenous material shall develop for the use
of children. Teaching strategies shall be creative
and multi-dimensional. They shall make
maximum use of all remaining sense modalities
and provide for active participation in the learning
process.
4. Teachers:
 Regular: Bachelor of Science in Elementary or
Secondary Education
 SPED: Article VIII Section 2 – for the effective
implementation of the special education program.
the education, welfare and training of personnel
shall be given high priority. All personnel
involved in the education of children with special
needs shall have adequate and appropriate
educational backgrounds and personnel qualities.
What is IDEA?
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law
that makes available a free appropriate public education to
eligible children with disabilities throughout the nation and
ensures special education and related services to those children.
 The EAHCA of 1975 was renamed the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act
 children” was replaced with the term “individuals”
 “handicapped” became “with disabilities”
 Significant change in attitude which focuses on
person-first, not disability-first
 Disabilities are now viewed as one aspect of a person,
not their sole identity.
 Individual Education Plan
The Individual Education Plan It is a legally binding document
that schools must follow.
Goals of IEP
 Need to be “measurable” -- how will you know when
s/he learns it?
 Need to make sense
 Need to be a natural part of the day
 Must be tied to general curriculum for that age and
grade of child
 Need to be based on the student’s assessed need
 Must be individualized to the student. One size does
not fit all.
 Need to say how goals will be worked on all during the
school day (for example, speech needs to be done in
class, lunch, recess, etc.)
 Need to blend so that a student is working on several
goals at a time
 Need to say what teaching methods, materials or
equipment are used.
 Need to be written to encourage interaction with
students without disabilities
 Must be changed if the student is not learning.
Who are the members of the IEP team?
1. A local representative from the school agency.
2. The child’s teacher.
3. One or both of the child’s parent or responsible part.
4. The child.
5. Other individuals at the discretion of the parent or
agency.
Special Education in the Philippines
1. 1902- Fred Atkisnon- Proposed that deaf and blind
children be enrolled in schools like the other children.
2. 1907- David Barrows- worked for the establishment
of Insular School for the Deaf and Blind in Manila.
(located now on Harrison Street, Pasay, City.
3. 1926- Philippine Association for the Deaf was
founded.
4. 1927- The Government established Welfareville
Children’s Village in Mandaluyong.
5. 1945- The National Orthopedic Hospital opened the
school for crippled.
6. 1949- Quezon City Science High School was
inaugurated for gifted students.
-Philippine Foundation for Rehabilitation of
the Disabled was organized.
The time when the private sector started supporting the
government’s program for Filipinos with disabilities.
7. 1953- Elsie Gaches Village was established to take
care of abandoned, orphaned and youth with physical
and mental disabilities.
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 FOUNDATION OF SPECIAL AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATION NOTES
8. 1954- First week of August was declared as Sight
Saving Week.
9. 1955- First parent teacher work conference special
education was held at SBD.
-Members of Lodge No. 761 of the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks
organized the Elks cerebral palsy project
incorporated.
10. 1957- The Bureau of Public Schools (BPS) of the
department of Education and Culture (DEC) created
the special education section of special subjects and
services division.
The Program include:
 Legislation
 Teacher training
 Census of exceptional children
 Integration of children with disabilities in
regular classes
 Rehabilitation of residential and special
schools
 Material production.
11. 1962- Manila Youth Reception Center (MYRC) was
opened for the socially maladjusted and emotionally
disturbed.
-DEC issued Circular No. 11 s. 1962
“Qualifications of Special Education
Teachers”
-Experimental integration of blind children at
the Jose Rizal Elementary School (Pasay)
-St. Joseph of Cupertino School for the
Mentally Retarded was founded.
12. 1963- Teacher scholar training for blind children
started at PNU Philippine Printing House for the Blind
was established (UNICEF and CARE, Philippines)
13. 1965- Training program for school administrators on
the organization, administration and supervision of
special education classes.
14. 1967- BPS organized the National Committee on
Special Education.
-General letter No. 213: regulating the size of
special classes for maximum effectiveness.
15. 1968- R.A 5250: an act establishing a ten-year training
program for teachers of special and exceptional
children in the Philippines.
-teacher scholar at UP commenced in the
areas of hearing impairment, mental
retardation and giftedness.
16. 1969- Classes for socially maladjusted children where
held at MYRC.
-Jose Fabella Memorial School was divided into five
units:
 Philippine Training School for Boys (Tanay)
 Philippine Training School for Girls (Alabang)
 Reception and Child Study Center (Manila)
 Elsie Gaches Village (Alabang)
 Nayon ng Kabataan (Pasay)
17. 1970- R.A No. 5250: Teacher training program for
children with behavioral problem started at Up.
-the school for the Deaf and blind was
reorganized into two separate residential
school.
18. 1973-UNESCO and Philippines Association for
retarded: First Asian conference on mental and
retardation was held in Manila.
19. 1975- Silahis concept of Special education was
implemented.
-Special subjects and services division was
abolished.
1977-1987: Decade of the Filipino Child
20. 1976- First camp Pag-ibig: day camp for children with
disabilities.
-Molave youth home for children with
behavioral problem was organized in Quezon
City.
21. 1977- Ministry of education issued department order
No. 10: designating regional and division supervisors
of special education programs. Bacarra Special
Education Center (Division of Ilocos Sur) Bacolod
Special Education Center (Division of Bacolod)
22. 1978- Presidential Decree 1509: Creation of National
Commission Concerning Disabled Persons (NCCDP)
-MEC memorandum No. 258: Directed
school divisions to organize special classes
with a set of guidelines on the designation of
teachers who have no formal training.
-UP opened its special education training
program for undergraduate students.
-PAD started mainstreaming program in the
Division of Manila City schools.
23. 1979- Caritas-Medico-Pedagogical Institution for the
mentally retarded was organized.
-Jagna special education center in the
division of Bohol was organized.
24. 1980- School for crippled children at the southern
island hospital in Cebu City was established.
25. 1981- UN: international Year of disabled persons
26. 1982-Batas Pambansa Bilang 344
27. 1987-Autism Society of the Philippines was organized
1993-2002 Asian and the Pacific Decade on the Disabled
Person
28. 1996- The first week of January was declared as
Autism Consciousness Week
-First Seminar workshop on information
technology for the visually impaired
29. 1997- DECS order NO. 26: Institutionalization of
Special education program in all school.
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 FOUNDATION OF SPECIAL AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATION NOTES

-First Philippine Wheelathon race was the  Continuous orientation of the school personnel
main event of the 19th disability prevention and pupils in inclusive schools
and rehabilitation. 3. Strengthening the Support Services which
30. 1998- Palarong Pinoy Para sa May K was held at include the following:
Philsport Complex.  Hiring of trained SPED teachers
31. 1999- DECS order No. 104: Exemption of the  Provision of specialists like physical therapist,
physically handicapped from taking the National speech therapist and other specialists
Achievement Test (NEAT) and National Secondary  Hiring of teacher-aids
Aptitude Test (NSAT)  Implementation of the “buddy” system
-DECS order No. 108: strengthening of  Provisions of instructional materials and
special education program for the gifted in equipment
public school system. 4. Parent and Community Involvement
-DECS Order No. 448: Search for the 1999
 Provision of parent education
Most outstanding special education teacher
 Involvement of families/communities of people
for the gifted.
with disabilities
-Memorandum No. 457: National Photo
 Linkage with other Gos and NGOs
Contest on Disability
32. 2000- DECS Order No. 11: Recognized Special
Education Centers in the Philippines.
-Memorandum No. 24: fourth International
Noise Awareness Day
-Every fourth week of November: national
observance of the week of gifted talented

What Is Inclusion?
 Reaching out to all learners
 Addressing and responding to diversity of needs of all
children, youth and adults
 Involves changes and modification in content,
approaches, structures and strategies
References:
Philippine Model of Inclusion
1. Partial mainstreaming towards inclusion https://www.slideshare.net/annvitug/foundations-of-special-
 students are educated in regular classes at least education
half the day https://prezi.com/g6otunbtjgx-/history-of-special-education-in-
 receive additional help or specialized services the-philippines/
 pull-out https://www.slideshare.net/JuanitoPineda4/mase-401-
2. Full mainstreaming or inclusion introduction-to-special-education-nature-theories-and-
 complete regular instruction concepts
 receive all special service in general classroom https://www.slideshare.net/gjarong/regular-and-sped-
compared
Approaches to Make Inclusive Education Work in Regular https://www.slideshare.net/rbarnabas/idea-1990-pl-101476-
Schools presentation
1. Establishment of a SPED Center which will
function as a Resource Center
 Support children with special needs
enrolled in regular schools
 Conduct of in-service trainings for regular
teachers and administrators
 Conduct assessment of children with disabilities
 Produce appropriate teaching materials
2. Information, Dissemination and Education
 Explanation of concepts
 In-service trainings

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